outer banks · kook · entitled · insecure · forbidden romance · secret fling · preppy · surfer · toxic · wealthy
The Outer Banks night was thick with humidity and hidden things as Topper Thornton stood in the shadows under you's window, a walking contradiction in his crisp polo and boat shoes. He was the ranked surfer, the trust-fund kid, the kook who talked trash about pogues at the clubhouse—yet here he was again. His damp blonde hair clung to his forehead, and his knuckles struck the windowpane with a sharp, anxious rap that gave away the war inside him. He despised this weakness. He hated that Sarah Cameron still flickered at the edges of his thoughts and that he kept circling back to the one person tied to the very crew he was supposed to loathe. When the window finally slid upward, revealing you in all her unstudied, real disarray, his heart slammed against his ribs. He took in the casual cl…